[ExI] Atlas Shrugged

Sat Apr 30 19:56:27 UTC 2022

Does anyone know if Marx had ideas about how to bridge from capitalism to
communism?  According to one post, he thought that communism was some law
of the universe and would take over once we get rid of what we have.  His
ideas on primitive societies being communistic were very wrong.  bill w

On Sat, Apr 30, 2022 at 2:47 PM Darin Sunley via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

> Marxism isn't a political or economic philosophy, it's an apocalyptic
> religion. And not a very well-thought-out one either.
>
> Could you build a political and economic philosophy on Marxism? Sure. Many
> have tried.
>
> But Marx wasn't one of them.
>
> On Sat, Apr 30, 2022 at 1:38 PM Darin Sunley <dsunley at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Scott Alexander on Singer on Marx:
>> https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/09/13/book-review-singer-on-marx/
>>
>> "But in fact Marx was philosophically opposed, as a matter of principle,
>> to any planning about the structure of communist governments or economies.
>> He would come out and say it was irresponsible to talk about how communist
>> governments and economies will work. He believed it was a scientific law,
>> analogous to the laws of physics, that once capitalism was removed, a
>> perfect communist government would form of its own accord. There might be
>> some very light planning, a couple of discussions, but these would just be
>> epiphenomena of the governing historical laws working themselves out. Just
>> as, a dam having been removed, a river will eventually reach the sea
>> somehow, so capitalism having been removed society will eventually reach a
>> perfect state of freedom and cooperation."
>>
>> "Singer blames Hegel. Hegel viewed all human history as the World-Spirit
>> trying to recognize and incarnate itself. As it overcomes its various
>> confusions and false dichotomies, it advances into forms that more
>> completely incarnate the World-Spirit and then moves onto the next problem.
>> Finally, it ends with the World-Spirit completely incarnated – possibly in
>> the form of early 19th century Prussia – and everything is great forever."
>>
>> "Marx famously exports Hegel’s mysticism into a materialistic version
>> where the World-Spirit operates upon class relations rather than the
>> interconnectedness of all things, and where you don’t come out and *call* it
>> the World-Spirit – but he basically keeps the system intact. So once the
>> World-Spirit resolves the dichotomy between Capitalist and Proletariat,
>> then it can more completely incarnate itself and move on to the next
>> problem. Except that this is the final problem (the proof of this is
>> trivial and is left as exercise for the reader) so the World-Spirit becomes
>> fully incarnate and everything is great forever. And you want to *plan* for
>> how that should happen? Are you saying you know better than the
>> World-Spirit, Comrade?"
>> " I am starting to think I was previously a little too charitable toward
>> Marx. My objections were of the sort “You didn’t really consider the idea
>> of welfare capitalism with a social safety net” or “communist society is
>> very difficult to implement in principle,” whereas they should have looked
>> more like “You are basically just telling us to destroy all of the
>> institutions that sustain human civilization and trust that what is
>> *basically* a giant planet-sized ghost will make sure everything works
>> out.”
>>
>>
>>
>> On Sat, Apr 30, 2022 at 6:36 AM spike jones via extropy-chat <
>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> *From:* extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> *On
>>> Behalf Of *Dan TheBookMan via extropy-chat
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> >…By the way, I would distinguish between Marxism and communism. This
>>> doesn’t mean communism as such is workable…
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Ja.  I put the blame for communism on the communists rather than the
>>> starry-eyed writers.  Like any philosophy, communism picks and chooses
>>> carefully among the stuff Marx and Engels wrote.  I can mine their writings
>>> and find plenty of stuff in there that resembles actual sanity.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> >…Also, I personally would more want to see a society based on Nozick’s
>>> slogan: from each as they choose, to each as they are chosen.  Regards, Dan
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Cool I like it.  We have a system based on that idea, even if it never
>>> heard of Nozick: the Boy Scouts of America.  The adult leaders are all
>>> volunteers, the boy scout looking for training or advancement goes and
>>> finds the people who can help her make it happen, ordinary citizens help
>>> fund the organization with donations, lawyers smell the money and
>>> voluntarily come after them relentlessly, everything is voluntary, the
>>> neediest get what they need, the worthiest help the others and are rewarded
>>> with veneration.  Excellent.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> spike
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>>>
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